Volcanic winter

volcanic winter, cooling at Earth’s surface resulting from the deposition of massive amounts of volcanic ash and sulfuraerosols in the stratosphere. Sulfur aerosols reflect incoming solar radiation and absorb terrestrial radiation. Together these processes cool the troposphere below. If sulfur aerosol loading is significant enough, it can result in climate changes at the global scale for years after the event, causing crop failures, cooler temperatures, and atypical weather conditions across the planet.

Explosive volcanic eruptions are capable of sending pulverized rock, sulfur dioxide (SO2), and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) into the stratosphere. Although volcanic ash can decrease regional visibility for a few months after the eruption, sulfur compounds injected into the stratosphere form sulfur aerosols that can reflect a portion of incoming sunlight for several years. As the concentration of sulfur aerosols increases in this region of the atmosphere, greater reflection occurs. Surface heating declines as a result, and thus cooler temperatures predominate at Earth’s surface. Compared with the underlying troposphere, the stratosphere is relatively devoid of atmospheric turbulence, and thus these aerosols may remain in the stratosphere for several years before settling out.

There is evidence that volcanic winters have occurred several times throughout Earth’s history, with varying degrees of severity. One of the more severe episodes of volcanic winter occurred sometime between 71,000 and 74,000 years ago when Mount Toba, a volcano on the island of Sumatra, expelled possibly as much as 2,800 cubic km (about 670 cubic miles) of ash into the stratosphere. Ice-core evidence suggests that average air temperatures worldwide plunged by 3–5 °C (5.4–9.0 °F) for years after the eruption. (Some model simulations estimate that this temperature decline may have been as much as 10 °C [18 °F] in the Northern Hemisphere in the first year after the eruption.) Some scientists maintain that this event sent the planet into a severe ice age that nearly caused the extinction of modern humans.

From June 1783 to February 1784 the Laki fissure in Iceland extruded about 12.5 cubic km (3 cubic miles) of lava that covered about 565 square km (220 square miles)—considered the greatest lava eruption on Earth in historical times. The enormous quantity of volcanic gas that was released caused a conspicuous haze over most of continental Europe. Some scientists link the presence of this haze over the region to the severity of the winter of 1783–84 in the Northern Hemisphere.

During the 19th century two volcanoes in the Indonesian archipelago were associated with volcanic winters. The first event was caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa. It expelled about 100 cubic km (24 cubic miles) of ash into the atmosphere in 1815. This event had the effect of reducing the average global temperature by as much as 3 °C (5.4 °F) in 1816, causing the “year without a summer” in parts of North America and Europe.

The second event was caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. This eruption discharged nearly 21 cubic km (5 cubic miles) of rock fragments, destroying much of the island of Krakatoa, and the surrounding region was plunged into darkness for two and a half days because of ash in the air. The fine dust drifted several times around the Earth, causing spectacular red and orange sunsets throughout the following year. Some scientists contend that this eruption upset weather patterns for years afterward. In 1928, after a period of renewed volcanic activity, a new island called Anak Krakatau (“Child of Krakatoa”) emerged from the ocean in the spot where the original volcano once existed..

More recently, gases and ash from Mount Pinatubo, a volcano located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, cooled the world’s climate by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) for a few years after the volcano erupted in 1991.

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